Background    The National "111" plan was jointly initiated and sponsored in 2006 by the Minister of Education and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. Its main objective is to promote research innovation and brain-gain in China through interactions and research collaborations with overseas research leaders. It also aims at training high-quality young people including graduate students and young researchers. The plan initially accepted applications only from Chinese top institutions including the so-called 985 and 211 universities until 2016 when it started to also invite applications from a limited number of province-sponsored (or local) institutions such as Hubei University of Technology (HBUT). HBUT applied in 2015 for the first time and became the only one in Hubei Province to be selected for the national competition although it didn't succeed at the end. In its second application in 2016, HBUT was again the only one representing Hubei and, this time, was granted. The HBUT National "111" Center for Cellular Regulation and Molecular Pharmaceutics was unveiled in late 2017 and will run for the next five years.

Research and funding    The research within the Center focuses on 1) elucidating molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying how the function of drug-related target proteins such as membrane or disease-associated proteins is regulated and 2) discovering molecules that interact with disease-associated target proteins to correct their function that is altered genetically or by acquired (eg environmental) factors.

Dr. Jingfeng Tang (Director, email: tangjingfeng@hbut.edu.cn ).